February 01, 2010

Orphans from Haiti

I may be doing these Baptists from Idaho an injustice, but having just read Sharlet's The Family, I'm inclined to think their worldview is that American families are better than Haitian ones, so taking children from their home country before determining whether the kids were eligible for adoption is justified.

Sharlet spent a fair bit of time with ordinary fundamentalist Americans, not just with the leadership; he expresses a sympathy for them that I'd be hard-pressed to equal. In this case, I'm boggled by the arrogance of these folks. Even if the kids are orphans, your faith and nationality alone don't justify your swooping down into another country and attempting to "rescue" them.

My current day job is working with an adoption agency. It is POSSIBLE that they are unbelievably naive about laws around international adoption, about the serious worldwide issues in child trafficking and are cluelessly burbling nonsense about saving children as they tap dance through a minefield of nasty issues.

Hoever, given their rather ambitious money making plans for these children, I rather suspect that they are, in fact, child traffickers and should spend a good chunk of the rest of their lives in jail.

This site has some details. Scroll down to the bottom of the entry for a description of their cafe and villlas for adoptive parents.

(Steve - I don't know how to do the link-text thing. I'd appreciate it if you would make it pretty.)